Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the reality-has-an-anti-riaa-bias dept

We haven't had one of these in a while -- a comment that shows up in both the funny and insightful winners' circle -- but this week, we've got Rich Fiscus, who was voted most insightful and second funniest, by paraphrasing Stephen Colbert in saying:

Reality is known for its frequent anti-RIAA bias.

Coming in second on the "insightful" side of things was a comment from TMWaH in response to one of our regular critics claiming that SOPA/PIPA would have no impact on Reddit. TMWaH wondered why that should matter:

Just because SOPA wouldn't take down Reddit doesn't mean they can't be opposed to it. It's like speaking out against racism when you're a part of a racial majority. The fact that you're not directly affected doesn't mean that you should just let it slide.

Of course, an even more to the point response is that the original person is totally wrong. While the bill could not directly take down Reddit, since Reddit is an information location tool, under PIPA, it would be required to maintain a blacklist of links which it could not allow to be shown, even if users posted them. That creates both significant compliance costs and significant risks should they fail to properly block such links.

For editor's choice, we'll lead with this fantastic comment from an Anonymous Coward, responding to ICE boss John Morton patting himself on the back for ICE's successes last year. In the video, Morton keeps talking about how he's Saving American Jobs, but this AC noticed that many of the examples of "counterfeit" products that ICE showed were from foreign companies:

Several of the examples of counterfeit goods were not even made by American parent companies, much less American workers.

For example, early in the clip they show a website selling presumably-counterfeit Manolo Blahnik shoes, a Spanish designer that has its headquarters in the UK.

Then in another clip there is a news clip talking about counterfeit Louis Vuitton handbags, but that's a French company.

I doubt any of these foreign companies manufactured products in America, ever, so the only American jobs involved in their distribution and sale are the guys unloading freighters, driving trucks, and manning cash registers, and Americans can still do that whether they are selling counterfeits or knock-offs.

Examine closely the FRICKING HUGE body of laws which you've already shoved upon us--and take the time to revise/correct/remove those laws.

Once you've learned to take care of your toys, er, laws then you can have new ones. But not until then.

So, we already mentioned that Rich's comment came in second in the funny category. What comment could top it? This one from Capitalist Lion Tamer, in response to the stories of Warner Bros. and HBO making it more difficult for consumers to watch their movies:

WB, HBO Increase Piracy Window to 56 Days

Spokesmen for the oft-idiotic content companies stated that they previous 28-day window had shown little effect on piracy numbers or DVD sales but felt that they could make it up in volume by doubling the size of the window.

"We feel that the average consumer will likely forget about our new product within 56 days, meaning we'll see no additional revenue from the rental and streaming markets as well," stated the spokesman before trailing off into an incomprehensible mumble while updating his resume on his Blackberry.

Further requests for comment were drowned out by horrified shrieks of "OH MY GOD I DON'T HAVE ANY OTHER 'MAJOR SKILLS'!!!" and embarrassingly loud sobbing.

Since Rich's comment came in second, we'll just bump up the number three comment... which, it turns out was also written by the very same Capitalist Lion Tamer (nice week), in which he channels Lamar Smith in response to a commenter's question of why SOPA supporters were still trotting out The Pirate Bay as an example of a rogue site, despite the fact that SOPA doesn't apply to .org, which is what TPB mainly uses. CLT tried to guess Lamar's answer. But the truly winning part isn't so much the comment, but the graphic that went with it:

We'll close out with just one more editor's choice. In response to the amusing story of Sega suggesting a "hard reset" might be the best way to deal with SOPA, Mesonoxian Eve decided to take the analogy further:

Electrical Engineering 101: Start half way. If it's discovered the output is bad, the source is the issue. If it's discovered the output is good, the components beyond are the issue.

*puts multimeter between Article 1, Section 8 of US Constitution and SOPA/PIPA/DMCA

The output is bad.

If only it were that easy. Anyway, time to gear up for another week. Hopefully... that output won't be bad.

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"citation."

Several hours of video are uploaded to youtube every minute and copy protection laws are opt out, which means Google must hire a team of psychic lawyers to determine what constitutes infringement. How is Google supposed to watch all of the footage that's uploaded yet alone magically decipher infringing content from non-infringing content?

"grocery stores shouldn't have to make sure illegal drugs aren't being sold in their stores. That creates significant compliance costs."

If poor analogies are the best you can do then I suppose your position truly is intellectually bankrupt.

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35 Hours of video were uploaded to Youtube every minute, and that's in 2010. Imagine what it is now? Even if Google could surmise to get enough people to watch all of the uploaded videos fast enough to match that, how are they possibly going to know what footage is infringing? By magic? Do you have the magic words that can do it? Please tell.

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Youtube has an automated system that can check content against references already stored within that system. Which is not foolproof, as it can be beat or it can remove content which may have had literally a seconds worth of copyrighted material in it. So on and so forth.

Care to try again.

Because there truly is no way to determine with 100% accuracy and certainty just by looking what is or isn't copyrighted. There is no way to check 48 hours of video that is uploaded per minute without significantly making things financially difficult and resource intensive on Google/Youtube.

But trolls never were ones to think about things from a rational perspective now were they. Care to try again?

I revert you back to the previous comment. Handwavium. Is that the end all be all fix for everything in your magical world?

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Nice try Freetardo, but YouTube's ContentID works very well indeed. Creators and copyright holders let YouTube know what content they want protected and what action to take and the software takes care of the rest. It works great.

and Youtube and its content filtering system is supposed to magically know that these alleged IP holders are in fact the true IP holders and not someone posing as the IP holder because false alarms never happen?

"and the software takes care of the rest. "

and the software simply takes care of the rest? It's just that simple? Did you help write any of this software? Are you the one working on all the bugs and developing this software? Do you think that writing such software is cheap and easy? Just because you didn't contribute any of your effort into it doesn't make it any cheaper for Youtube. Youtube still has to pay programmers to write and update this software as people constantly find new ways around it. It's not free and the software is still relatively easy for determined users to circumvent.

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As you say, programming this software is not cheap or easy. Is Youtube being compensated for all this work by the copyright holders? Or are they being freetards, demanding all this work and protection and not paying a dime?

No, it doesn't work "great"

I'd like to see it catch an original Star Wars fan fic video.

Yes, Virginia, copyright infringements which are not simple copying do exist. And simple copying exists which isn't infringement, because it is fair use. And no automated software could possibly catch these cases, because they can only be determined with 100% certainty in a court of law.

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No it doesn't, it's removed material that had music playing in the background or had a tv show running in the background. Doesn't sound like it works very well to me.

Also, that content they want protected, we all know they've NEVER removed material just cause they could. /s

Sorry, but the Content ID system while it does work, is prone to error and abuse. It's like a one click DMCA removal, which is something else the content creators and copyright holders abuse routinely enough.

I love how you resort to insult right off the bat though. It's real representative of your mindset.

Re: Nice try Freetardo, but YouTube's ContentID works very well indeed.

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The problem is not making life difficult for Google, the problem is making life difficult for everyone, 99% of the people don't have billions to spend on lawyers, 99% of the people will be censored and do nothing about it because they can't afford to do anything.

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Yes, we know. Which negates the point how? and how much of your money and time did you spend helping youtube develop this system? Did you help engineer it? Did you contribute to it in anyway? Or does the sum of your contribution amount to a worthless comment on a blog?

A: Such an automated system "creates ... significant compliance costs." These things aren't free you know, just because you're not the one paying for them.

B: No such system is perfect as computers are no more able to magically decipher infringing content from non-infringing content than humans. Hence, "significant risks" are still created from copy protection laws, especially when it comes to new startups that can't afford to immediately implement a fancy automated system.

C: That's another problem with IP law. Almost all of the burden is placed on everyone else (ie: Youtube and service providers) to stop infringement. Almost none of the burden is placed on the privilege holder. The IP holder is in a better position than service providers to determine what infringes on the IP holder's privileges yet such IP holder's have little legal burden to publicly alert others that 'their' content is protected. It's easy for you, as a non-content creator/IP holder with no merit, to say that Youtube has an automated system and that they just need to improve it to make it perfect and that others need to implement such perfect systems, you're not the one paying for any of this. They are. You're just freeloading off of their merit and their efforts and off of one sided laws that only benefit you.

D: IP extremists still complain about Google and Youtube, that they facilitate infringement. But, of course, this isn't about infringement, what it's really about is competition. IP extremists want to turn the Internet into what they managed to turn everything outside the Internet into. Through government established broadcasting and cableco monopolies and through laws that make it too legally risky and expensive for restaurants and other venues to host independent performers, the IP cartel has managed to stop competition outside the Internet. This is not accidental, this is intentional, and that same cartel wants to do to the Internet what it has managed to accomplish outside the Internet. This isn't about stopping infringement, it's about stopping competition.

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"Stoppelman said that Google had licensed Yelp's content, then tried to buy the company after the license ended. When that failed, Google simply scraped Yelp's local review results and incorporated bits of them into its local search products. When Yelp sent Google a letter demanding that it stop this practice, Google "informed us that it would cease the practice only if we agreed to be removed from Google’s Web search index, thereby preventing Yelp from appearing anywhere in Google Web search results." "

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Google is a private entity that receives no monopoly power from the government, it has every right to choose what content it wishes to host vs what content it doesn't. Just like a retail store can choose what books it wishes to sell and which ones it doesn't, it's private property. No one is entitled to a spot on Google's search engine. If you don't like it then find another search engine.

Since cable companies and public airwave broadcasters receive their monopoly power from the government, they have no right to pick and choose what content they can host. Yet, as has been pointed out on Techdirt, they do, and their choices tend to be self interested (ie: by not covering SOPA). That's unacceptable.

There is a big difference between a private entity choosing not to host something vs a governmental law that results in censorship.

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Viacom...what did they do in that lawsuit? Oh yeah...I remember now! They sued Google for videos that were on Youtube...videos that were DELIBERATELY put there by VIACOM and made to look like your average Youtuber.

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" If you weren't so busy being a freetarded pirate stealing content from starving artists you would know about these discoveries."

If the MPAA, RIAA, and the rest of the media conglomerates weren't ripping off the artists they "represent" they wouldn't be starving. Their profit margins of these greedy bastards have INCREASED despite what they would have the public believe.

"YOU DAMN KIDS 'N YER INTRANETS 'N YOUTUBERS 'N READETS! WHEN I WAS YER AGE I HAD TA HIKE FIFTEEN MILES UPHILL IN TH' SNOW TA WATCH A GODDAMN MOVIE AN' IT MADE US APPRECIATE IT! NOW GET OFFA MAH GODDAMN LAWN YA oh crap just pooped m'self again NURSE!"

And just to remind people how much the movie industry is inflexible, I want to tell everyone about something I read on Warner's news outlet(i.e. CNN), about George Lucas complaining about how difficult it was to greenlite the Red Tails (2012), that is a symptom of a failing system, it is averse to risks, and moves at glacial speeds to respond to environmental stimuli. It is so difficult to change anything that others inside that system need to ask for help from the outside and that means trying to shame the system into compliance because even the bigs names don't have the resources necessary to do it on their own and they go on asking for help from the very people that they treat like crap, the public. George Lucas is a veteran in the film industry he is fond of keeping secrets so the fact that he complained public can only means it was deliberate, he doesn't like what he sees and want things to change and by using his own public capital he enacts that change by making statements here and there, so he gets the public to get onboard.

The sad part is that only those inside that group are allowed to speak to others, they don't want six pack Joe commenting or having his own ideas, they want you to directed by them to the conclusions that they want you to have it.

I see all those news outlets saying nothing about real news, they don't care about people want is like that it is all planed to reach a certain state of mind, to reach the same conclusions, but I know that is not true, what happens in reality is that there is a set of inputs into that system that force them to act in a certain way that is why they act so similar, they all think they are doing it by themselves but they are being directed by a set of fixed rules that forces them into that path, they are prisoners that are so used to their shackles that they don't want freedom, in fact they are scared of the free world and will fight to stay in shackles forever if they can help it.

We all can see them here everyday, the slaves of monopolies, complaining about how hard it is to be free.

Those inputs come from IP laws, those are the things that must change so new perceptions come out of the shadows, new ways of doing things, new economical models that work and are proven by experimentation and not endless debate about how it would work or not, each era has its sets of rules we call them culture, social mannerism, social idiosyncrasies or whatever and they change like water changes its form and properties depending on where it is.

We enter a cycle of immense progress because we dared to make things more open, openness helped the world to get where it is today and now IP laws are a barrier to the advance of mankind.

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OK, we managed to delay SOPA/PIPA for now, but now it's time for us to be more proactive in our efforts to fix copy protection (and other) laws. Lets first target something we can all agree on, copy protection lengths. Lets demand Congress reduce it to something more reasonable, I say ten years (is still too long since most revenue is made well before then). We need to also ensure that any discontinued works automatically enter the public domain. Then we can move on from there.

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(and we should try to come up with a narrow and reasonable definition of discontinued works, since the words 'discontinued works' seems to be vague and easy for copy protection holders to try to jump around).

I think we can easily get enough people to agree that ten years is long enough for copy protection lengths to last, only the vocal minority of IP extremists would disagree (and they really want copy protection lengths to last forever even if they don't admit it). (Perhaps in our efforts we should show others statistics of how long it takes for most content to receive most of its revenue). We shouldn't 'compromise' on something like 75 years. It can be difficult enough getting a hold of movies that are ten years old, imagine how much more difficult it is to get a hold of content twenty or thirty years old. We should also ensure that works retroactively enter the public domain.

Second thing we should target is the fact that copy protection is opt out. It should be opt in, with the requirement that protected works be publicly listed on a government website and that they are also stored with the LOC so that they can be released upon entering the public domain. The govt should store copies in several separate locations as well.

This will take effort but if we put effort into it, we can accomplish these endeavors. We need to put serious pressure on the president and on congress to start fixing our laws. If we don't ever make any efforts then nothing will ever get done. Now is the time to start, not tomorrow, not the day after, not eventually, NOW. Lets do something.

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Lets first target something we can all agree on, copy protection lengths.

I suggested simple repeal of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act because simple repeal seems easiest to agree on.

In Eldred, petitioners argued that CTEA was an unconstitutional extension. Petitioners, if you remember, lost that argument before the Supreme Court. But petitioners and friends did believe it was an unconstitutional extension of copyright terms.

If we do away with the concept of IP, then the media giants are become what they actually ARE - MIDDLEMEN. Media brokers paid a nominal fee to represent artists and the work they produce and all of this bs away. No more bs patents on ridculous concepts like "one click shopping". No more frivolous lawsuits by patent trolls and the like. Everyone owns the thoughts in their own heads (even if the thought came from somewhere else).